Next Week
by LostinOblivion
Summary: Sequel to Saturday, complete fluff. I had to end this one where it was, sequel to come later.
1. Chapter 1

Emily yawned at her desk, more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life, as being 22 weeks pregnant was taking its toll. Her back hurt, her feet were slightly swollen and sore, cramps frequently attacked her legs, and she was sweating like crazy. That wasn't what was worrying her most though, because her baby hadn't begun to move yet. That wasn't normal. At her last doctor's visit, he told her that women usually experienced the quickening, the first time the baby moves by the twentieth week. In light of this she had another appointment scheduled for the following Monday.

To further make this situation worse, the past month and a half had been so busy and convoluted that she felt like she was going through everything on her. She'd barely seen Matt through those six weeks, though it wasn't his fault. Emily's new assignment head-shrinking incarcerated HT's had her bouncing around the country. The first three of those six weeks were spent in the North East, visiting federal penitentiaries in: Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford, etc.

Then she was supposed to go back to California, and supposed to be able to see her husband. Then went she went to pick up her ticket and catch her flight, they told her her flight had been changed to Atlanta. This led to an irate call to the supervisor of the little project they had her doing, who told her they were pushing the schedule up. They decided they didn't want her flying around the country too far into her pregnancy.

So then she'd spent two and a half weeks in the deep South, where the officials of every prison she walked into looked at her like she was nuts. A few even told her that she "shouldn't be going into places like this in her delicate condition." Then three days later she finally caught a plane back to L.A. determined not to leave it or Matt for the next decade. As their luck would have it, Matt's plane left L.A. about an hour and a half before Emily's landed.

Cheryl had driven her home, after having to tell Matt and his new partner to pack and get their asses south, San Diego had their hands full, and there was a small town further south that had an unhinged man with a very large automatic weapon. That was two days ago, and due to piles of paperwork, and then a huge hurricane, he was stuck there. This storm was still raging, blowing through parts of Mexico and southern California, canceling and delaying all sorts of important things, like Matt getting home to her.

"Emily go home," Cheryl demanded, coming out of her office, jacket on and briefcase in her hand.

"I'm just going to finish this," Emily insisted, despite the yawn escaping her.

"No, put the pen down and get out of this office right now."

"Why, it's barely seven?" Emily chose to play dumb at that moment earning herself an impatient look from Cheryl.

"Not only have you stayed past seven the last four days, but you also yawned your way through them. And you're pregnant; you shouldn't be working this hard. Relax, go home."

"Go home to what?" Emily practically spat out.

"He'll be back in a few days," Cheryl gave her a sympathetic look.

"Six weeks Cheryl, six weeks," Emily whined.

"I know, Matt spent the last five reminding me. This little project they gave you was not my idea, though I do take responsibility for Matt's current whereabouts."

"I miss him, and I'm tired of doing this," she gestured to her stomach, "by myself."

"Matt hates it too if that makes you feel any better. I caught him staring at that sonogram photo several times over the last several weeks."

Suddenly at the mention of the sonogram, tears sprung to Emily's eyes, and regardless of the struggle she put up against them, one slid down her cheek. She swiped at it angrily, removing the moisture from her face as another tear trickled down her other cheek.

"Emily? What's wrong?" Cheryl asked worriedly.

"Nothing, nothing," she mumbled back, still swiping at her tears, which only seemed to come faster.

"Alright, come here," Cheryl instructed, guiding her crying friend into the office she'd just walked out of. She flicked on the lights, and they sat on the couch the Bureau was kind enough to put in her office. Cheryl sat there, waiting for Emily to talk.

"I-I'm scared…the baby…it hasn't moved yet," she said quietly.

"Have you talked to your doctor?"

"Yeah, two days ago. I'm going into see him next week."

"Good, Matt will be back by then, he can go with you."

"Yeah…what if there's something wrong?"

"Emily, it could be as simple as the doctor estimated your conception date wrong, you shouldn't worry until there's something to worry about," Cheryl tried to tell her.

"The chances of a miscarriage go up for women in their mid-thirties, Cheryl, I am thirty-five. And I've been running all over the country, that can't have been good for the baby. And I haven't been eating great with all the running around, and I wasn't paying enough attention, I tried to work like I wasn't pregnant, and I drank before I knew I was pregnant, and-" Cheryl cut her off before she could finish listing every little thing she might have been doing wrong.

"Emily, listen to me for a minute. You are not perfect, and you were not born solely to be a baby factory. You are going to make mistakes, but you know what? 99 percent of them end up harmless. You haven't done anything wrong, okay?" Cheryl held her hands and looked straight into her eyes, making sure she was heard.

"But what if my mistake is in that one percent?" Emily asked quietly.

"Those supposed mistakes you listed? They're all the harmless ones. Besides, that baby's mother is what I believe is traditionally referred to as a 'spitfire', and it's father's head is as thick as a rock. If any kid was ever going to survive nine months in the womb and the grueling trip down the birth canal, it's yours," Cheryl told her with a smile.

"Thanks," Emily told her gratefully, though not totally convinced.

"You don't believe a word of what I just said, do you?"

"No, but I do feel a little better. Thanks."

"Anytime. Are you going to be okay tonight then?"

"Yeah, I think am too tired to anything more than pass out."

"So you won't spend the night crying and beating yourself up?"

"I'm pregnant and hormonal, I make no promises."

"Fine, then let's get out of here. You should be at home with your feet up, and a half-empty tub of ice cream on your lap." Cheryl said, practically forcing her out the door.

* * *

Meanwhile, Matt was feeling just as miserable, hunkering in a town hall in the tiniest town in California. Though evidently, it wasn't too small to have a psycho who felt the need to take some hostages. So he was stuck there for the third day in a row, hiding from the raging storm. He was also stuck rooming with two dozen other people and growing, who's homes weren't standing up to the storm, or more likely the trees and branches falling. 

He felt like he'd hadn't seen Emily in forever, and he missed her like crazy, and worse he felt like he was missing so much with the baby. Sure the idea had freaked him out at first, and it took some getting used to, but now he was genuinely happy and even excited. He often found himself staring at the most recent sonogram photo, where you could almost make out the baby's fingers and toes. If it had been bigger, he might have been able to see them, but the small photo could only offer so much.

That little photo was in his hand at that very moment; he kept it behind his ID, which was always with him. With it he also kept a candid of Emily, smiling and seemingly engaged in a conversation with someone. It was her at her most natural, and it was how he saw her when he closed his eyes. Matt suddenly felt a tugging on his shirt, and there stood a little, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl looking at him.

"Are you a cop?" She couldn't have been more than four or five.

"Yeah, sort of. I'm Matt."

"I told you!" She called to a boy about her age, who stood behind her, then she turned back to Matt. "I'm Maria, and that's Cale, my friend."

"It's nice to meet you both," shaking their tiny hands.

"What are you looking at?" Maria asked.

"This is a picture of my baby, it's still growing inside it's mommy's belly."

"In her belly? She ate it?" Cale asked his eyes growing wide.

"No, silly. When we were babies we were in our mommy's bellies. That's where babies grow," Maria corrected him, raising her head from studying the picture.

That made Matt laugh; Maria reminded him of Emily- smart as a whip, and not shy about making it known, or taking control.

"Let me see the baby," Cale half-asked, half-whined, when Maria took too long with it.

"I'm still looking at it," she insisted.

"It's my turn to see it."

"Alright, how about you look at this one, while she finishes with that one," Matt told him, passing him the photo of Emily.

"I'm done!" Maria suddenly chimed in, handing the sonogram photo to Cale, and taking the one of Emily from Matt. "Is she the mommy?"

"Yep, that's my wife, Emily."

"Hey man, who are your friends?" Matt's new partner Tony Marcellis asked him.

"This is Maria and Cale." Matt told him. The two negotiators got on pretty well. Like every pairing they had occasional spats in the field when they disagreed how to handle an HT, but they were working out pretty well. Though, Matt missed having Emily as his partner terribly; it just wasn't the same.

"Hi, I'm Tony. What's that you've got?" He asked them pointing to the pictures.

"You're his friend, shouldn't you know?" Maria demanded, surprising both Matt and Tony.

"Uh, I guess so. What are those Matt?" He asked his partner, who was watching the little girl with amusement.

"Uh, just some pictures I had on me."

"Of who?"

"Uh, a picture of Emily, and a sonogram photo," he mumbled, those photos were exactly macho.

"Oh, let me see." He took the photo from Cael, as the little boy tried to hand it to Matt.

"That is definitely something man. That kids gotta be this tiny, and you can already see his fingers and toes," Tony commented, staring at the photograph in awe.

Matt nodded slightly uncomfortable; he and his partner hadn't really discussed Emily or the baby much. He didn't bring it up because he didn't want twenty questions about banging and shaking up with your partner, or the ribbing that would come with it. He didn't gush over the baby, because it wasn't really something guys did. He also was just starting to get a feel for the guy, and wasn't inclined to immediately become best friends.

Tony knew that the only reason he was there was because Matt had married and impregnated his last partner, but he didn't know much about them. He'd never brought it up, because being that he knew so little about them, he wasn't sure the marriage wasn't because of the baby. He didn't know if Matt was happy with the situation, and since he never brought up, he figured best not to either. And, he'd barely seen the couple interact, as Emily spent most of her time outside of the office at the prisons, sometimes on long trips, like the last five weeks.

Tony decided to change this. "When is she due?"

"Four and a half more months to go," Matt answered, choosing not to hide his eagerness.

Tony handed Matt the sonogram photo back, as he took the one of Emily. "Do you miss working with her?"

"Everyday, no offense,' he quickly added.

"None taken, I have a buddy in the Washington office, I heard she's really something in the field."

"Yeah, stubborn as hell, but she reads people like nobody I've ever seen before." Matt took the photo back and shoved both pictures back behind his badge. He shoved it back in his jacket, and brought his head back up to see Tony watching him with an odd little smile.

"You really carry those photos with you all the time?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Nothing, just sometimes I forget that there is such a thing as a happy marriage," he shrugged.

"That because of your own experience?"

"Yeah, and others. I was married once, and I can tell you that shrew doesn't come close to her. It failed after a few miserable years, just like every marriage I've ever seen. Except my parents. They are still together, but they hate each other. So, yeah, I don't see many guys look at pictures of their wives like that."

"Thanks, I think," Matt said, not sure quite how to respond.

Tony just nodded, "So I bet you want to get out of here pretty badly."

"You have no idea. I've barely seen Emily in six weeks," Matt finally let out some of his frustration.

"Well the storm is supposed to start letting up tonight, so when it gets lighter, we can take that ugly gas-guzzler out, and hightail it back to San Diego."

"You think that's safe?" Matt asked not quite caring.

"Those SUV things are supposed to be so great in extreme conditions, might as well test it," he said with a grin.

* * *

The next morning Emily rose from her cold, empty bed, her heading pounding. She'd put her feet up, and even eaten some ice cream, but she couldn't get the idea that something was wrong with her baby out of her head. Truth was she'd been okay until she'd caught sight of a photograph of Matt and her together at the Team's bar. Lia and smuggled a camera in and snapped pictures of the team that whole night, getting several of the two of them looking very cozy. Needless to say, on top of making her miss Matt even more than she was, she was struck with the thought of having to tell him something might be wrong with the baby. That sent her into full stream waterworks. 

Now she had to call Cheryl and tell her she'd be late, since her throbbing head caused her to repeatedly abuse her snooze button. And of course Cheryl tried to tell her to just stay home and relax, but when Emily protested and told her she'd just cry more, Cheryl gave in, and told her whenever she got there was fine. It was a Friday, she'd didn't have any classes.

Before getting into the shower, Emily set up the coffee maker, which had long since been converted to decaf, much to her annoyance. But caffeine is bad for the baby, so both her and Matt slowly and somewhat painfully got used to going without their morning pick-me-up.

She was out of the house by 9:00, an hour after she was usually already at work. Nine is the tail-end of rush hour, and traffic was a bitch to get through, so she made it to the office by 9:30, pissed from a hundred different honking horns, getting rear-ended, and still having her giant headache return.

"Damn, you look like you had a rough morning," Frank greeted her.

"Thanks Frank."

"No, I mean you look really pissed, what happened?"

"Headache, traffic, nimrod asshole drove into my back bumper, and there is still a hurricane in southern California," she rattled off.

"Wait, you got rear-ended? Did you get the moron's insurance info?"

"Yeah, once he saw that I'm both pregnant and FBI he nearly wet himself," she commented bitterly.

Frank burst out laughing at that, already picturing the poor shmuck's face.

"What's so funny?" Lia asked, as she walked up with Cheryl, both with curious expressions on their faces.

"Oh nothing except Emily nearly made some dickhead piss himself this morning," he said still laughing.

Lia and Cheryl both turned questioning and surprised glances toward Emily, who shrugged and walked to her desk.

"Wait, wait, you aren't going anywhere until you explain what he just said," Cheryl stopped her.

"This guy rear-ended me on the way in, and once he saw that I was pregnant and I showed him my badge he got very nervous…and I was a little hostile," she admitted.

Lia tried not to smile, though she was quite amused, and Cheryl tried to give her a stern look, but failed miserably.

"Oh I have good news for you," she said instead.

"What? I'm done talking to cons?" Emily asked sarcastically.

"No, you might actually get to see your husband before the weekend," Cheryl smiled.

"What?" Emily whipped her face toward Cheryl.

"The storm just started clearing, he should be able to get to San Diego tonight, and maybe even get a flight out and be back tomorrow morning," she said, enjoying the excited look that grazed Emily's face.

"Have you heard from him or Tony yet?" Emily asked eagerly.

"No, I figure you'll get a call before I will." Cheryl paused, watching the huge smile appear on Emily's face, and she couldn't help but laugh. "Emily, you really should see the dopey grin on your face right now."

"Six weeks Cheryl, I'm entitled to look as dopey as I want," she insisted, before settling at her desk.

"Yes, I suppose you are."

* * *

So, I decided I needed to do one story in between Emily being five weeks pregnant and in labor, just to shrink the gap slightly. And, as I'm sure you could tell, this one is complete fluff, much more cutesy than I usually go for. One more part for this one. Thanks for reading and reviews! 


	2. Chapter 2

"This might not have been the smartest idea," Matt decided studied their supposedly wonderful SUV, which had gotten stuck in a giant mud puddle.

As soon as the wind slowed the pair had jumped in the SUV and hauled ass toward San Diego. It was still dark when they took off, perhaps not their brightest idea, but one that had worked just fine until this point.

"Hey, we're only ten miles from San Diego, if all else fails we walk," Tony shrugged, as they both sought refuge back in the vehicle. The rain was still pounding down, however the wind seemed to have slowed considerably.

"What makes you so eager to get home?"

"My kids are going to be on a plane tomorrow morning, they'll be in L.A. by the afternoon. I'd like to beat them there, or my ex will never let me see them again."

"Damn, now I get what you meant by shrew."

"Yeah, amazing it lasted seven years though, right?"

Matt nodded before focusing back on their problem. "Alright the way I see it, we either grab some branches and try to get the car out of this puddle, or we start walking."

"Do you really want to walk in this?"

"I don't think we'd make it back before we got hypothermia will all this damn rain."

"So we go for the branches. It's now or never." Tony said, pulling the door handle, and diving back into the rain.

Matt dove out after him, each agent going in the opposite direction in search of branches to brace the tires.

Ten minutes later Tony returned to the car with a decent sized branch, and Matt followed a few minutes later with his own sopping wet branch. Together they worked the branches into the mud, both men already soaked to the bone, and soon both covered with mud. When Matt slipped and fell, Tony lost his balance and went with him.

Finally after thirty minutes of pushing, pounding, shifting, and enough cursing to make a cop blush, they finally had the branches placed. After a short game of rock, paper, scissors, which Matt lost, Tony got into the car and started it. When Matt signaled that he was ready, Tony slammed the gas, and the tires spun, as Matt held the branches in the ground, getting splattered with more mud. Finally the car lurched forward out of the puddle.

Matt eagerly leapt into the car, still sopping and now twenty pounds heavier with mud.

"Are you alright man?" Tony asked him.

"Yeah, just a little gross."

"Well, let's just hope that doesn't happen again." Tony laughed as Matt flung mud all over the car.

"Easy for you to say, you didn't get splattered all over."

"And I thank you for that," he smirked as the lapsed into an exhausted silence.

"Tell me about your kids." Matt suddenly asked.

"Uh, well Jeremy is seven and a half, he's already in guitar lessons. Then Maggie, my little princess is almost five, spends every minute she can on a pony named Cinnamon."

"You had Jeremy before you got married?"

"Yeah, that was actually most of my motivation for proposing. I didn't think it was a bad idea until after Maggie was born, Sheila, my ex, didn't really want her."

"Sorry…then why does she have custody?"

"Because I moved to a little apartment across the country, she had a house, so they gave it to her," he shrugged.

"I'm sorry, that has to be rough."

"Yeah, you deal. I'll get them back…so, what about you and Emily?"

"What about us?"

"You guys haven't been married that long right? And she's pretty pregnant?" He asked cautiously.

"Yeah, we found out she was pregnant two weeks after I proposed, so we went to Fiji and got hitched, saving ourselves the trouble of trying to time the wedding around the pregnancy," Matt explained.

"Fiji huh? Nice."

"Yeah too bad Cheryl called us in the middle of it, so Emily could talk down some idiot that everybody had pissed off beforehand."

"You're kidding, right?" Tony asked laughing.

"Oh I wish I was." The two men laughed, as Tony guided the car, and after keeping an iron grip on the steering wheel for an hour, they finally pulled up to the airport, grabbing their overnight bags, and dropping the keys off at the rental store before tearing into the airport to get tickets.

It was still early in the morning, as they took of as early as the stormed allowed them, braving some rather hazardous conditions. As of that moment, all the flights were still very much delayed. Two wet, mud-covered federal agents sent out creative strings of curses. All that effort, and they were still stuck.

Once again that evening Cheryl exited her office to find Emily still at her desk, though her pregnant colleague actually seemed to be asleep. This was the fourth day in a row she'd stayed late, it wasn't a surprise that she was exhausted.

"Emily, time to wake up," Cheryl told her, gently shaking her.

"Huh, what?" Emily looked around as she blinked her eyes awake.

"It's time to go home, you'll sleep better there."

"Oh damn it, I fell asleep?"

"Yeah, and you should have been out of here hours ago."

"Wait, what time is it?"

"Almost eight, again."

"Wow, the last time I looked at a clock it was six."

"And you should have left then."

"Lehman, what the hell are you still doing here?" Frank demanded as he walked into the CNU.

"Sleeping," Cheryl smirked and answered for her.

Frank looked at her puzzled.

"I fell asleep at my desk."

His expression changed to one of amusement.

"What, those files start to blur together after awhile. If I hear one more idiot blame his wife, girlfriend, mistress, or woman he has a crush on, my morning sickness is going to spontaneously come back all over him."

"So, you're not liking your new assignment too much, huh?" Frank asked her.

"I miss being in the field, I miss the adrenaline, and I miss having a partner. Bouncing from prison to prison and having my only conversations with convicted felons can get lonely, and becomes a little depressing after a while," she railed against her assignment.

"And you miss Matt." Cheryl added.

"That goes without saying."

"That still doesn't really answer why you're here so late." Frank informed her.

"Same thing as you, working."

"Now you see, I should be here. You, Emily, shouldn't be working this late, not with that little bean growing in there," he gestured to her stomach.

Cheryl and Emily gave him questioning looks, and Emily asked, "Bean?"

"It looks like a bean in the sonogram photos," Frank shrugged.

"A few months ago, now it actually looks like a baby. You can even see fingers," she scolded him.

He held his hands up, "Fine, baby. The point is it isn't good for you or the baby for you to work this hard."

"Since when do you know so much about babies and pregnancy?" Emily demanded.

"Since that husband of yours has read half the books in the L.A. library," he shot back. "I get a play by play of every book, believe me, I know more about what's going on in there than most women."

"Isn't that sweet, big, strong, gun-wielding HRT man, knows about babies," Emily teased him.

"Very cute Lehman, you still should be home."

"Fine, I'm leaving now, you both happy?" She asked grabbing her things, and starting to walk to an elevator.

"Hey, we're thinking of our own well-being too, Matt finds out we let you work this late, he'll kill us," Frank told her, as he hit the elevator button for the basement parking garage.

"Let me? So what, since I'm pregnant I can't make my own decisions now?" She demanded, half-playfully.

"Talk to your overprotective husband about that." The elevator jolted harshly as it stopped a few floors down, opening to doors to a seemingly empty VICAP unit, before the doors slid closed again, and the elevator continued shuddering to the basement.

"They really need to do something about these elevators," Cheryl commented gripping the bars along the walls, trying to stay upright as the machine lurched downward.

"They said maintenance is backed up, can't get to these yet," Frank commented, grunting as he smacked into the wall.

"It's a good thing my morning sickness is gone, or maintenance would have something else to clean up," Emily muttered.

"How have you been feeling?" Frank asked suddenly.

"Besides being tired and sore all the time, not too bad. A lot of women have a harder time…" she trailed off, thinking that those women probably don't have to worry about the baby not moving.

"You and Matt have names picked out yet?"

"Haven't even really discussed it yet," she gritted her teeth as the elevator pitched them all forward with it's harsh stop, and the doors creaked open at a snail's pace to reveal the parking garage.

The three gratefully exited the ancient, theme park ride elevator, each wobbling faintly, before getting their legs back under them, and walking on.

"Do you hear that?" Cheryl suddenly asked.

"Hear what?" Frank said, only half paying attention.

"Voices. I figured everybody left already."

"I guess we're not the only ones pathetic enough to still be in the building this late."

"Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"Where did Emily go?" she asked looking around, as Frank did the same, both suddenly aware that the third of their trio had seemingly vanished.

However, Emily had recognized one of those voices, and took off after it. Needless to say Tony and Matt, who'd been talking as they walked toward the elevators, were stunned when a redhead launched herself into Matt's arms. Matt had barely processed what happened when she began kissing him, though once he did, he wasted no time reciprocating.

Tony stood by laughing to himself as he watched the couple, who'd long ago let go of the bags they held in favor of each other.

Emily couldn't believe it when she heard his voice, but he was real and pressed up against her; god, even her body had missed him.. She dug one set of fingers into his usually soft, but now mud covered hair, while the other arm remained firmly around his waist. She could tell he had mud caked on him, but after the six longest weeks of her life, she just didn't give a damn.

That redhead had been the best shock of Matt's life, and a welcome home that most men can only dream about. He'd never missed somebody quite that much, and finally having her back wrapped up in his arms was worth all the mud and more. He went to pull her closer, only to be surprised by the new size of her belly. He broke the kiss and went to pull her back, but she refused, hanging on to him.

"I want to hold you a little longer," she whispered, and he was only too happy to comply, both completely oblivious to the two smirking people that had joined Tony in watching the couple.

"Does she have radar for him or something?" Frank asked amused.

"She must," Tony agreed. "Scared the hell out of me when she launched at him like that, I thought he was being attacked. Nearly drew my gun."

"That forceful was she?" Frank laughed

"You should have seen it, though I have to say, Matt adapted pretty quick."

"Oh shush you two," Cheryl scolded them.

"You didn't see the lightening speed she came in on," Tony defended himself, grinning.

Cheryl rolled her eyes at him, "Hey, how did you guys get back so early?"

"Uh, we left when it was still dark this morning, and thanks to the FBI being cheap and booking round trip tickets leaving the day after we came, we were able to catch the first flight that they let leave."

"The storm didn't let up until late this morning, how did you guys get to San Diego?"

"We drove, and got caught in a mud puddle, but we got there."

"So that explains…" Cheryl gestured to his mud covered appearance.

"Yeah, Matt's worse." Tony grinned at her.

"You ever hear that expression that men are just big boys?" Cheryl asked, while Tony just smiled in response.

Matt and Emily had finally broken apart, and after another, quicker kiss, Matt pulled away from her enough to study her belly, which was much bigger than when he'd last seen her.

"Damn, you can tell you're pregnant now," he breathed, putting a hand gently to her belly. Matt was captivated by the sight in front of him; it almost wasn't real before then, but now, the sight of Emily's grown belly proved that there was truly a baby growing inside her. He placed his other hand on her belly, so that the two covered a decent piece of the surface area, and tried to feel his child.

Emily watched him studying her changed figure, touched by how enthralled he was with it, but fearful at the same time. If she had any doubts before that Matt wanted the baby, they were all gone now, and now she might have to tell him that it wasn't going to happen for them. Then she caught the tale end of their friends' conversation.

"Matt, how bad was the storm when you and Tony started driving?"

"Uh, better than it had been, most of the wind had settled by then. Why?" He took his eyes off her belly for a moment.

"You could have been hurt or killed."

"We're fine. We went very slow, I promise. We just really wanted to get home," he gave her a slightly more masculine version of puppydog eyes.

Emily just rolled her eyes at him.

"He's telling the truth, don't worry. It took us three times as long as it should have to get to San Diego," Tony assured her.

"A three hour drive from that little town to San Diego?" Frank asked incredulously.

"See," Matt turned to Emily, "I told you we went slow."

"Alright, alright, but next time, wait until the dangerous weather clears." She warned him; the two were still very attached, each with an arm around the other, but facing toward their friends, so that the five made a poorly formed circle

"How bad was the damage there?" Cheryl asked.

"A few houses got trees or branches through them, and the power was still out when we left. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though." Tony answered.

"Don't forget about all the crap on the streets. I swear one of those plastic flamingo things blew passed one of the windows of the shelter."

"Nobody else saw that, Matt."

"It was bright pink, how could you miss it?"

"It wasn't only me that missed it, it was every other person in that shelter. I think you started going a little stir crazy."

"I was not, the damn thing blew by the window."

"A pink flamingo, Matt?" Frank asked, laughing.

"It was there, you just missed it because you were looking at the Barbie that flew by," Matt scowled at Frank, and shot his remark at Tony.

"Hey, at least other people saw the Barbie," Tony shot back.

Amused at their banter, Emily was surprised suddenly by a strange feeling in her stomach, her free hand immediately flying there.

Cheryl was the first one to notice Emily's eyes grow wide and mouth gape open, and she grew concerned, "Emily, are you all right?"

"What?" Matt said suddenly pulled from the conversation, and turning toward his wife, who continued to stare wide-eyed into space. "Em, what's wrong?"

Emily could see the concern take over Matt's face, as he watched her stunned expression. She quickly grabbed his hand and brought it to her belly, holding their hands over their child as it moved for the first time inside her womb.

"Whoa…" Matt breathed out, no other word coming to mind to describe the subtle motion beneath his hand.

"Is that the first time the baby moved?" Tony turned to Cheryl.

"Yeah, and thank god it finally did." She told him relieved.

"Kid's as stubborn as it's parents already." Frank commented, but continued at the questioning looks he received. "It refused to move until its daddy was around."

* * *

So, this took a little while to get out, but writing three stories at once (and two more in my head waiting to be written) can get a little messy. One more chapter for this story and it should be done. Oh, and if anybody would like to suggest baby names for the future story following this, I welcome them. Take care all!


End file.
